Housepets!

Hi,

I'm Sam, just introduced myself in the Welcome topic.

I read a brief discussion somewhere in the German translation topic about whether there is a Dutch translation of Housepets. The thing with the Dutch is that most of them speak English, so there probably is no direct need for a Dutch translation.

Nevertheless, I'd like to try to translate Housepets into Dutch. Translating is kind of a hobby I took up. My birth language is Dutch, but I also can speak English, French and German to a reasonable degree. Translating from a foreign language into your own is the easiest step in learning to translate. I hope to improve my knowledge of the English language this way. My final goal is to translate French/ Belgian comics into English, but I think I have some distance to go before I can achieve that.

I'm not sure there will be any response to this thread and if there are any Dutch fans at all here who may read and comment on my posts. It would be nice to have some feedback, also from non-Dutch speakers and other translators. Even without understanding the language, I welcome advice from members in how to improve the result.

I started to translate the text of the fist 50 cartoons into Dutch, and I have lettered the first five. I'd like to show some of the translated cartoons in the course of the next days.

Kind regards,
Sam

OK, here is the first then.

It looks like Rick Griffin is using a 10 points webletterer font, I figured that a 9 points letter would be more suited to Dutch, as words are often longer. This way, there is still enough white space around the text.

I had a dilemma whether to use the original names of Peanut and Grape, or if I would replace them by Dutch names. In general, a translator tries to stay as close as possible to names of characters and places. However, if a name has a meaning in the original language, and the meaning can be transferred to the target language, replacing the names can be a good idea. For example, the 'Tiger' character would have to be called 'Tijger' in Dutch, so the puns about his name will be clear for a Dutch reader without English knowledge. For example children in the age of 8 - 12, who can read Dutch but may not have sufficient knowledge of English.

So I decided to translate Peanut and Grape's name. The nice thing is, a peanut butter sandwich is popular Dutch food. It wouldn't surprise me if our ancestors have introduced in the States. We got it from the Indonesians in turn.

So Peanut Butter becomes 'Pinda Kaas', short: 'Pinda'

Then, Grape Jelly is a bit more difficult. 'Grape' would be an unusual and harsh sounding name in Dutch if not translated. I decided to go for 'Hagel Slag'. It's a chocolate sandwich topping that goes very well with peanut butter, similar to 'Chocolate Streusel'. Also, 'Hagel' sounds a bit like 'Rachel', suiting her 'hidden' female identity.

But I noticed in most of the other languages, including German, the translator stuck with the original names. I'm curious about whether people think I made an appropriate choice.

Hi Render,

Thanks for your reply and comments! I also hope I can keep up my enthusiasm. It's a lot of work, but it's exciting to do. I figured I need about 15 minutes to translate one episode and I need 15 minutes or more to do the lettering, so I can extrapolate the total sum of the work to come. Hopefully I can gain speed by getting more routine.
Making a rough translation is not very hard, but getting the details right and making it sound like it had been written in Dutch originally, takes a lot of rewriting.

I've not yet reached the part where King comes in, but I decided to keep his name 'King'. It sounds as a good dog name in Dutch, whereas 'Koning' for a dog would be odd (we're a monarchy). I decided to handle names on a per case base. 'Vos' for 'Fox' and 'Tijger' for 'Tiger' does sound right in Dutch. 'Fuchs' would be a funny name to give to a dog. I wonder if there are German dogs with that name.

Nice that you understand some Dutch. If you have questions or want to learn a bit more, don't hesitate to ask. I'm here for improving my understanding of English, but learning other languages and helping people who want to do the same sounds like fun to me.

OK, Here I added the second episode.

Your vowel clusters are maddening -_-
Thank you for introducing me to Dutch. I'm going to enjoy working this out some more
(But seriously who decided how you pronounce your vowels? -_- )

(Course I say that as a native English speaker )

hooray, new language!
Welcome to the club, I can't wait to see more of your work -although, yes, I must admit that I find it funny to see the characters' names translated in one's own language.

"hagel slag"
seriously the Dutch are great at everything, especially their music. Ik hou van Hardstyle!!

Hi guys,

Thanks for the positive response! I like some hardcore too, although 'Gabber' is a bit too much for me.

Yes, Dutch is a weird language. There is a popular misunderstanding that Dutch is somehow a type of 'German' language. That's because the word 'Dutch' is etymologically related to 'Deutsch', which means 'German' in German. I think it is some historical mix-up, like for example the Dutch sometimes refer to the United Kingdom as 'England', which probably is slightly insulting to the Scottish - who are definitely not 'English'. Europe is pretty complex, but I like it that way.

'English, Dutch and German are 'Germanic' languages however, together with Swedish and some more. If you can read one of them, you may be able to follow one third or half of what is written in other languages of that group.

Dutch and German may have some similarities in written form, but the spoken form does sound quite different from German. Indeed, there are many vowel combinations, called 'diphthongs'. There even is a vowel combination 'ui', that I have not found in any other language yet. And the pronunciation of the Dutch letter 'g' sounds like choking on a chicken bone. It is somewhat related to the German 'ch' sound, but harsher. Especially in the West of the country. The country where Dutch is spoken, is the Netherlands, by the way, but it is also spoken in the northern part of Belgium, called Flanders. The local Dutch variant is called 'Flemish'.

OK, that's enough school for today.

Here is another episode:

And another:

Here's another one. I had to modify the text on the sign in frame 4 a bit, I hope the result will do. I also needed a few alternative letters from the Komika Hands font for some diacritical signs that occasionally occur in Dutch.

This texts in this episode are very imaginative, almost poetic. It was a pleasant challenge to find matching terms.

OK final episode of first arc. I decided to replace sound effects as well, if they do not sound 'natural' in the target language. After some searching I found the font 'Varieté', made by Peter Wiegel, that looks a bit like the font Rick Griffin uses here for the door slamming sound. But it's not completely the same. Anyone knows which font is used in the original drawing?

Arc 02. The Game - Het spel

2008-06-16
A Mournful Situation - Een rouwige situatie

2008-06-20
The Game I Mean - Het spel dat ik bedoel

OK, another three done. Only thousand to go yet!

About this episode: Grape looks so beautiful when she is angry. She's my favorite character!

Arc 02. The Game - Het spel
(last episode finished)

2008-07-09
The Great Outdoors - Het prachtige buitenleven

2008-07-11
A Real Buzz - Een echte kick

Arc 03. Cat Tail - Kattenstaart

2008-07-14 Misunderstood Artist - Onbegrepen artiest

Note: I had to widen the balloon for Grape's text in frame four. The Dutch text could not be shorter, and I didn't want to choose a smaller font, because of the dramatic content.

2008-07-16
Ostracize Doesn't Mean To Turn Into An Ostrich - Geschorst

Note: I couldn't find a fitting translation for the word pun in the title, so I just kept it short: 'geschorst' means 'suspended'

2008-07-19
A Cat Isn’t Fine Either - Een kat is ook niet goed

2008-07-20
Sorry No Comic - Sorry, geen strip
(For completeness)

2008-07-28
Pushing The PG Rating IN YOUR MIND - Maak het spannend in je hoofd

2008-07-30
Hey Dude - Hee gozer

2008-08-01
Anise Is Like Catnip But For Dogs - Anijs is kattenkruid voor honden